Pulling Bones
by BellatrixLestrangey
Summary: Goretober day 15: Teeth. Regina keeps finding teeth Henry's room.


**Sorry if this one is a bit lackluster. I was super excited for this prompt but have been sick and my brain was just kinda...eh...it did its best.**

* * *

Henry runs up to her with a wide smile. "Look, mom!" He exclaims.

Regina looks up from her paperwork. She tries to muster up a smile but she is buried so deeply in tax forms and proposed budget plans that she only manages half of one. "Did you color in the lines again?"

"No, mom! Better!" He smiles wider and wiggles his tooth.

"Very nice, dear." She ruffles his hair and starts to turn back around.

"It's my first one!" Henry declares.

"Perhaps you'll get a surprise after it falls out."

"From the tooth fairy?" He asks.

"From me." Regina tries for another smile. "There are no fairies in Storybrooke."

"Am I going to like the surprise?"

Regina lifts him into her lap, "you might."

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing fun, dear."

"Grown up homework?"

"Grown up homework." Regina nods. Henry sticks his tongue out in disgust, making a point of wiggling his tooth in the process. She lets the boy watch her work through her stack of papers until he nods off. When she is sure that he has fallen deeply asleep, she lifts him up and carries him to his room. She pulls the covers up to his chin and kisses his forehead. She turns out his light and decides that it will do her well to get some sleep too.

**.oOo. **

She sleeps fitfully, not that this is anything new. Her nights are usually accompanied by vivid re-renders of her father's death; of the man begging her to spare him. Of him saying that he hates her.

She runs her hands through her hair and gets up. Quietly, so not to wake Henry, she wanders down the hallway and into the bathroom where she rummages through the cabinet for some sleeping pills. She takes two tablets and makes her back into the hallway.

It is dark, enough so that she almost doesn't notice that Henry's door is slightly ajar. As quietly as possible she creeps towards his room, she thinks of calling his name, but she doesn't want to bother him if she is just being paranoid. She opens her mouth to call him softly anyways. Instead, she lets out a quiet hiss of pain.

She was going to have to get him to clean his room in the morning. She bends over to pick up whatever she had stepped on. She knits her brows as she holds it between her fingers. She glances back at Henry. He seems to be sleeping peacefully and undisturbed.

Regina wonders if he had grown impatient and yanked it out himself. She curses herself for her minor negligence; she should have told him not to do that. She looks at the tooth, he'd probably panicked and dropped it there.

She rubs her hands over her face. She supposes that if he'd done any real damage he would have run in crying.

They were going to have to talk in the morning.

**.oOo. **

It is the weekend so she lets him sleep in, taking the time to fill out the last of her paperwork. She hears the faucet turn on, noting that she will have to add a sticker to his chart for brushing without being asked. For a flicker she feels some of the happiness that has been lost to her for some time. It is nice to know that his loose tooth has made him enthusiastic to brush on his own.

Regina turns the stove on. She supposes that she will add some whipped cream and chocolate chips to his pancakes this morning, yanked or not, she had promised him a special treat for his lost tooth.

The scent of melted chocolate is kind on her nose. She sets the plate before him.

"What's this?" He asks.

Regina smiles at him, "it's for your lost tooth. I promised you a surprise didn't I?" She pauses. "But." She gives him time to process the 'but'. "Next time you have to let it fall out on its own. I know that you were excited but pull it too soon probably hurt a lot, didn't it?"

The more she talks the more confused he seems to grow.

She sighs. "I'm not mad. I just don't want you to get hurt."

His brows furrow and he opens his mouth.

Regina tilts her head.

It is still there.

All of his teeth are still in place; he wiggles the loose one with his tongue.

She feels the breast pocket of her night shirt. She touches something small, something with ridges. "I'm sorry, Henry, I must have stepped on a rock…" it had been dark afterall, she had been exhausted. "Leave your shoes at the front door…"

"I have been." He protests. "Does this mean I don't get the pancakes?"

"You can have the pancakes." She replies, feeling bad for having blamed him despite how utterly perplexed he looked.

He finishes his breakfast and tells her that he is going to go play in his sandbox. She waits for the door to close before emptying her pocket. The object she pulls out is unquestionably a tooth. Her eyes narrow and she shudders.

**.oOo.**

This night is as sleepless as the one prior. If not more so. She listens for any sound, she hears none. Nothing all night. Henry is as cheerful as ever and boasts about how his tooth is getting looser.

Yet there is a second tooth on her dresser.

A third night arrives and he asks her why she wants to sleep in his room. "Mama, I'm six years old! I already have a loose tooth. I'm not a baby anymore. I can sleep in my own room."

"But I'm a big boy! I'm not even scared of the dark!" He declares.

"But I am." Regina tries, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Can you help mommy sleep tonight?"

Henry giggles.

"What's so funny, Henry?"

He continues to giggle, "you're 'fraid of the dark 'n I'm not."

Regina lifts him into bed. "Hey!" she feigns offence. "I don't laugh at you when it thunders."

Henry stops laughing and pats her head with his teeny hand. "It'll be fine mom. I'll help you sleep!"

She already feels better. She turns the lights out and waits. She humors him and lets him think that she has fallen asleep first and that he is protecting her. His snores comfort her and remind her of why she needs to keep herself awake and alert. She eyes the door, waiting for the knob to turn or for it to slowly move itself agape.

Every crack and shift of the house leaves her wishing that she had left herself with a supply of magic. She watches 11:00 become 12:00. And then 12:00 shifts into 1:00. Her eyes begin to feel heavy. The urge to get coffee is almost overpowering but she doesn't want to leave Henry. Not even for a moment. She knows that it is waiting, whatever the hell it is. She won't let it get her son. She won't let it take from her, the only thing that really matters.

She peers down at Henry. At his precious and sleep smile. He coos something in his sleep. She is glad that his dreams seem pleasant. She moves his hair and kisses his ear.

Something hits the back of her neck.

Regina goes completely tense.

Mustering up every bit of the queen that she has hidden away, she turns with a scowl.

Nothing is there.

Nothing but one single and small tooth.

She seats herself in front of Henry and glares at the door until light filters through the curtains.

When it finally does, she feels Henry stir and quickly lays herself down and closes her eyes until he begins to shake her. "I did it mama! I helped you sleep! I kept you safe!"

Regina rubs at tired eyes and forces a smile. She ruffles his hair again, "I guess you're my little prince _and _my knight."

Henry beams from ear to ear. She suppresses a shudder at his loose tooth. "Unfortunately for you, princes and knights have to go to school too."

**.oOo.**

She almost wants to pretend like she has to stay late at the office and take Granny up on her babysitting offer. He might be safer in a new location, she thinks. ...Or he will just be in the hands of someone who doesn't realize that there is danger at all.

Regina looks at the three teeth and clenches her fist. This town is supposed to have no magic. She finds herself stomping towards Gold's shop. As things go in her life, it is locked up tight with a sign reading 'closed for the day.'

He doesn't answer his door either.

She spends the better part of her day pretending to work and catching up on her sleep. For once, she is genuinely thankful for Sidney's desire to please. He fills out most of her new forms, she will simply check them over when she is more rested.

She locks up her office and picks Henry up from school. She only half listens as he tells her about his day. She instructs him to finish his homework and watch some TV as she prepares dinner.

An hour later she hears the trademark wooshes and bangs of a superhero movie. She pops in to make sure his homework is done and reminds him that there is a back side. There is a ten minute pause before she hears Batman talking again.

She leaves the pot of pasta to cool. The sun is still rather high so she goes for a quick shower. The water is on for no more than five minutes when she hears pounding on the door. "Mom! Mom!" He wails.

Dread consumes every part of her. She doesn't waste time dressing herself, not when his voice conveys that much distress. She throws the door open and takes him into her arms. "Oh, God, Henry, what happened?" She holds his arm up. "How did this…?"

"Mama it hurts."

She rakes her fingers through her hairline and fumbles about the cabinet for some alcohol wipes and bandaids. "I know it hurts and this is going to hurt a little more…"

"Then don't do it, mom."

"Do you know what hurts more than cleaning a cut?" She asks. "An infection. How about this, you let me clean your arm and we can...we can spend the night and Granny's and get some ice cream."

Henry nods, dabbing at tears with his good arm.

She can't control her own shivering, she has to work fast, they have to leave the house. She feels horrible for not being as gentle as she can be in her haste and tries to ignore his pained hisses.

When that is done she, speedily slips back into her dress and, faster still, buckles him into his carseat.

She tries to hold herself together as Henry, once again joyful as ever, laps at a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone.

"Is something going on, Madame Mayor? I never see you here this late. Much less with Henry...eating ice cream."

Regina nod but her stress is very clear on her face. "I think someone is trying to hurt him."

"Who?" Granny asks.

Regina shrugs. "We'll be staying here until I figure it out."

**.oOo.**

She lets Henry watch some cartoons, far later into the night that she ever has. Several episodes in, she pauses the TV. "Henry? Can I see your arm?"

Henry hesitates before holding it out. Carefully, she lifts the bandaids. A new brand of terror chills her core at the sight of it.

Bite marks.

Red and swollen bite marks.

"Henry, who did this to you?"

Henry yawns and Regina notices that his loose tooth is gone.

"Henry." She repeats, more firmly. "Who did this to you."

He rubs his eye. "I got a visit from the tooth fairy, mom."


End file.
